[PHOTO] On Lovebot, or, the global #loveinvasion

Last week, Torontoist's Vandalist had a feature about Lovebot. This "geometric, faceless robot with a red heart logo (called the "hero heart") on its torso" has gone viral, even global, since its 2013 introduction by graffiti artist Matthew Del Degan. Sana Ali's article in The Varsity does a good job framing the introduction.

In your travels around Toronto, you may have come across a small imprint, or a sticker, of a robot with the outline of a heart on its chest. Meet “Lovebot,” designed by graffiti artist Matthew Del Degan for a cold and unwelcoming city. “We are not robots in this concrete jungle,” he assures me. “We have the ability to love.”

Del Degan recounts sitting in a streetcar, joking and laughing with another man whom he believed to be homeless when he noticed that the other passengers around them appeared like robots lost in their own digital worlds. Through Lovebot, he aimed to create a design that represented the joy we’re capable of.

“It’s been blood, sweat, and tears, many times for all three,” Del Degan tells me. He’d developed the design for a sculpture project in university, where he studied product design. It began as a clay sculpture of a robot with a heart, which soon turned into stickers, concrete robots, posters, toys, and more. Over the years the Lovebot has evolved from an art project to a large-scale movement.

Now, what started in the streets of Toronto has attracted international attention. On the occasions that Del Degan receives criticism for his art — which he notes happens from time to time — he is dismissive, saying, “We all just need a hug.” Despite the challenges, he has remained committed to his vision of expanding the Lovebot movement.

I still really like it. It's ubiquitous, but there are easily much worse things that could inhabit my visual envionment, and much to admire about Lovebot and its mission.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• On Livejournal, bitterlawngnome shares some remarkable vintage print ads from the early 20th century.


• The Dragon's Gaze notes that robots installed the mirrors for the James Webb Space Telescope.


• The Dragon's Tales notes the abundant water ice on the surface of Pluto.


• Joe. My. God. and Towleroad note the imprisonment of Philadelphia gaybasher Kathryn Knott.


• Language Hat explores college girl fiction.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes Marco Rubio's encounter with a gay man in New Hampshire.


• Marginal Revolution notes the global market for super-butlers.


• Steve Munro considers how Smarttrack and GO will co-exist.


• Otto Pohl compares nation-building in Central Asia with that in the Middle East.


• The Russian Demographics Blog notes a conference held in Moscow on Muslims and their space in that city.

[URBAN NOTE] Torontoist on making Old City Hall a civic museum

Torontoist's Erica Ngao makes the case for making Old City Hall a Toronto museum, of Toronto.

As the fourth-largest city in North America and one of the most multicultural cities in the world, Toronto is a place of many stories, with a history that spans 11,000 years. Bringing its collective story together isn’t easy. Current mainstream narratives are filled with gaps, particularly about First Nations history and the post-1950s immigration wave. Weaving together all of the events, people, and stories that have built this city would be an onerous task.

Amalgamation also creates challenges. According to Kaitlin Wainwright, director of programming for Heritage Toronto, the vision of a civic museum was put on hold when the city’s six municipalities merged and the central museums and sites of those municipalities blended together. Today, staff manage 10 historic sites across the city—from Montgomery Inn in Etobicoke to the Scarborough Museum.

A charitable agency of the city, Heritage Toronto works with local community groups and volunteers to provide city-wide programming and services. Wainwright fears that with all the focus on a singular city museum, resources will be drained from smaller local museums that are already fighting for attention.

“Too often in our public conversations that we’re having about museums, that’s ignored, that really great work is going not unnoticed but under-noticed,” Wainwright says.

For her, the best possible outcome is opening Old City Hall up to the public, as it was originally built to be. Whether it’s a museum or not is another question.

“The advantage to using Old City Hall as a museum, as a heritage space, is that the heritage integrity of the building will be maintained and that’s foremost what’s important to us,” she says. “Would Heritage Toronto want to see more resources allocated to the museum and heritage services sector within the City of Toronto? Yes, absolutely. Does that have to be through Old City Hall? Not necessarily.”

[URBAN NOTE] "Metrolinx to explore all options to save struggling Union-Pearson Express"

The Globe and Mail's Adrian Morrow looks at the issues with the Union-Pearson Express. Might it be made into a commuter line, maybe?

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne says the province will look at lowering fares on Toronto’s struggling airport express train and turning it into a commuter line in a bid to boost ridership.

The Union-Pearson Express, which costs $27.50 to ride one way between Union Station and Pearson International Airport, is running more than 90-per-cent empty after eight months in service. Ms. Wynne said provincial transit agency Metrolinx will consider all options to salvage the service at a meeting this week.

“There actually is a Metrolinx board meeting … and looking at the fare structure is something they’ve said they are going to do,” the Premier told reporters Monday. “I expect there will be a reassessment of not just [the fares] but some of the other issues around UP Express.”

One possibility is to encourage more daily commuters to use the train, rather than focusing primarily on business-class air travellers. The train currently makes two intermediate stops in the west end, at Weston Road and Dundas Street West.

“It wasn’t designed for [commuters], but there are two stops, there is Dundas West and there is the Weston stop, so there is the possibility for it to be used in some partial way for getting downtown,” Ms. Wynne said. “That’s what Metrolinx has to look at. They have to look at all of the options and figure out how to get more people, I mean, that’s the bottom line: How do we get more people riding the UP Express? That is self-evident that that needs to happen.”

[URBAN NOTE] "Student files human-rights complaint against Catholic high school, board"

The Globe and Mail's Caroline Alphonso describes a case of alleged discrimination by Ontario's Roman Catholic school system against a student that does, in fact, make me think defunding the separate school system is a good idea.

When Claudia Sorgini asked to be excused from religious courses and liturgies at her Catholic high school in Ontario, she was taken aback by the response: She would also be excluded from a variety of non-academic activities and assemblies, including a mental-health awareness assembly, the graduation-preparation assembly and an honour-roll breakfast. The school considered them “faith-filled” events.

Ms. Sorgini has filed a human-rights complaint against the school, the school board and the trustees’ association for “a continuous pattern of discrimination and reprisal in connection with her request for an exemption from religious courses and activities” in her last year of high school, according to her application, a copy of which was obtained by The Globe and Mail.

The complaint, launched with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, comes two years after a court ruled that students cannot be forced to participate.

According to a provision added to the Education Act in the 1980s, any student qualified to attend a public high school cannot be required to take religious courses. Public boards accept all students. But some Catholic schools are finding loopholes and making it more difficult or outright denying exemptions, earlier complaints to school boards indicate.

The issue of granting exemptions from religious studies has some observers wondering if the province really needs a publicly funded separate school system.

[LINK] "The problem with Postmedia"

David Olive's Toronto Star opinion piece on the 30th makes good points.

There is a cancer on Canadian journalism.

The malignancy is Postmedia Network Canada Corp., a foreign-controlled, debt-burdened contrivance flirting with insolvency that nonetheless is relied upon by about 21 million Canadian readers. Postmedia’s 200-plus media outlets, mostly newspapers, including some of the biggest dailies in the country, represent a far greater concentration of news media ownership than exists in any other major economy. And a degree of foreign ownership of the free press that would not be tolerated in the U.S., France, Japan or Germany.

The good news is that the Postmedia abomination, which has never turned a profit, is in such wretched condition that it’s not long for this world. The bad news is that as long as the biggest newspaper publisher in the country clings to life, it is a blight on all the communities it underserves.

Postmedia is controlled by quick-buck hedge funds in the U.S. Leading this group is New York-based GoldenTree Asset Management, which alone controls 35 per cent of Postmedia. Indeed, it was GoldenTree that created Postmedia, just five years ago, by salvaging proud, venerable newspapers like the Vancouver Sun, The Calgary Herald, the Ottawa Citizen and the Montreal Gazette from the ruins of the Asper family’s bankrupt Canwest empire.

For generations, Canadian law has forbidden foreign ownership or control of Canadian cultural assets. But after permitting the sale to non-Canadians of practically the entire Canadian-owned steel and mining industries, then PM Stephen Harper’s government signed off on Postmedia’s creation as well. The Americans put a Canadian face on the deal by selecting Paul Godfrey, 77, as Postmedia’s CEO. Not by coincidence, Harper and Godfrey, a diehard Tory, are kindred spirits.

[URBAN NOTE] "Relief line subway advocates look beyond downtown"

The Toronto Star's Tess Kalinowski has a nice interview with a student advocate of the Downtown Relief Line.

First there was FAST — Friends and Allies of SmartTrack. Now another unfunded Toronto transit project has its own support group.

The Toronto Relief Line Alliance is advocating for a project that has been pushed down the line for decades.

But the reawakened debate about a subway for Scarborough will inevitably bring new attention to the relief line.

Once referred to as the Downtown Relief Line, it is now more frequently called just “the Relief Line.” Many versions have been discussed over the years, but most envision a subway running off the east end of the Bloor-Danforth line to downtown around Queen or Front St.

University of Toronto student Louis Mark, 19, who is behind the alliance, wants to focus on what he calls the Relief Line Long. It would extend north of the Danforth, up to about Sheppard Ave. and Don Mills Rd.

[LINK] "Petition calls for Northern Ontario's separation"

The Sudbury Star's Sarah Moore reports on the resurgence of separatism in northern Ontario, aiming at making that territory a new province.

A grassroots movement to make Northern Ontario an independent province is gathering steam.

An online petition launched this month has collected more than 670 names.

Trevor Holliday, who launched the petition, said his goal is similar to that of the 1970s' Northern Ontario Heritage Party and other Northern Ontario separatist movements: To divide the province in two and treat Northern and southern Ontario as separate entities.

"I would want Northern Ontario to become its own province. That way it can be run by the people of the North for the people of the North, so that all the money from the North isn't taken and given to the south and then we're just left to whittle away."

The petition was posted online at change.org on Jan. 1.

Jarvis Peever, from Iroquois Falls, commented online that, "Northern Ontario doesn't get enough funding for infrastructure and our resources. With hydro stations in our backyards, why should we pay hundreds in delivery fees?"

Two individuals from Cochrane commented that Highway 11 needs to be made a priority and have appealed to politicians to examine the numerous fatalities that have taken place on that stretch of road and to do something about it.

[ISL] "Mi’kmaq leader calls PEI park name a ‘grave insult’"

This Canadian Press article does, in fact, describe an absurd situation. Who thought this was a good idea?

It’s a “grave insult” that a national park in Prince Edward Island still bears the name of a military general who wanted to kill aboriginal people with smallpox, says a Mi’kmaq leader.

John Joe Sark, a member of the Mi’kmaq Nation traditional government, says the name of 18th-century British military commander Jeffery Amherst should be removed from the Port-la-Joye–Fort Amherst historic site near Charlottetown.

“Why should they name any public place after a barbarian and a tyrant that this guy was?” Mr. Sark said Monday from Johnstons River, PEI.

“He may be a hero to the colonial government or the Settlers’ Society or whatever, but he’s no hero to the Mi’kmaq people.”

He has written to the federal government in a bid that adds fuel to an ongoing debate about how historic figures are honoured across Canada and the United States.

[LINK] "New 'Little Ice Age' coincides with fall of Eastern Roman Empire and growth of Arab Empire"

The Dragon's Tales linked to a report of a new study linking volcano-induced climate change in the 6th century CE to major events in history.

Researchers from the international Past Global Changes (PAGES) project write in the journal Nature Geoscience that they have identified an unprecedented, long-lasting cooling in the northern hemisphere 1500 years ago. The drop in temperature immediately followed three large volcanic eruptions in quick succession in the years 536, 540 and 547 AD (also known as the Common Era CE). Volcanoes can cause climate cooling by ejecting large volumes of small particles - sulfate aerosols - that enter the atmosphere blocking sunlight.

Within five years of the onset of the "Late Antique Little Ice Age", as the researchers have dubbed it, the Justinian plague pandemic swept through the Mediterranean between 541 and 543 AD, striking Constantinople and killing millions of people in the following centuries. The authors suggest these events may have contributed to the decline of the eastern Roman Empire.

Lead author, dendroclimatologist Ulf Büntgen from the Swiss Federal Research Institute said, "This was the most dramatic cooling in the Northern Hemisphere in the past 2000 years."

A later "Little Ice Age" between 14th and 19th centuries has been well documented and linked to political upheavals and plague pandemics in Europe, but the new study is the first to provide a comprehensive climate analysis across both Central Asia and Europe during this earlier period.

"With so many variables, we must remain cautious about environmental cause and political effect, but it is striking how closely this climate change aligns with major upheavals across several regions," added Büntgen.

[BRIEF NOTE] On Paul Bronfman's decision to hurt York University students

The above mural at York University, the Toronto Star's Nick Westoll tells us, was cause for media mogul Paul Bronfman

A Toronto film industry executive is pulling his company’s support for York University’s Cinema and Media Arts program due to a mural he said is “anti-Israel.”

“It made me sick to my stomach and very angry,” Paul Bronfman said this week when describing his initial reaction to learning of the portrait. “We live in an amazing city, an amazing country, and to have this happening under our noses is disgusting. It’s subtly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. It’s anti-Canadian.”

The mural is currently displayed in the York University Student Centre. It shows a person looking at a bulldozer close to a building while holding rocks. The person is shown wearing what looks like a Palestinian flag with a map of Israel without its borders. At the bottom of the mural, the words “justice” and “peace” can be seen along with other text.

[. . .]

Bronfman is also chair and CEO of William F. White International Inc., a provider of movie and theatrical production equipment. He said the company provided thousands of dollars of equipment and technical services as well as access to seminars, student lectures, trade shows and open houses.

“I’m finally putting my money where my mouth is. I’m withdrawing all of our student filmmaker support from William F. White International,” Bronfman said. He said he withdrew the support as of Friday.

May we be saved from diasporids who, in their outrage that their country does not support their particular parochial cause, decide to hurt countrymen to prove a point.

[DM] "Some thoughts on the origins of low fertility in Germany in reactions to totalitarianism"

I write at Demography Matters about the origins of Germany's unusually low level of completed fertility, suggesting that it represents a reaction to totalitarian meddling in family formation that needs to be overcome.